Coming Full Circle

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

-T. S. Eliot

It’s interesting to see how, as much as things evolve, there is also a circularity to this movement. For the past few years we have been working with the Graustein Memorial Fund on Right from the Start, an early childhood system change initiative for which the Fund has served as core convenor and funder. Come to find out that IISC’s new President, Ceasar McDowell, was in on early conversations that launched the Memorial Fund’s unique and wonderful Discovery program to seed community-based collaboratives for early childhood development planning.

Zoom ahead some dozen years, and Right from the Start has grown out of an organic call for the Memorial Fund to step in and help galvanize momentum towards a state-wide system that ensures that every child and family has access to what they need regardless of race, income, or ability. This video catches us up to date, as we look ahead toward a fall of working with the State Panning office, and stakeholders around Connecticut, to ensure that the system is holistic, preventative (focused on pre-natal to 3), and addresses structural inequities. Core to this ongoing work is ensuring that those most impacted by the system have a hand in its unfolding, honoring the wisdom of families to know what is best for their children. And so we come back to where Ceasar’s conversations began – how to ensure democracy has a community-based ring to it.

“In a sense, it’s not a system until it’s working for the people on the front-line, and above all the parents who need services for their children.” -David Nee, Executive Director, WCGMF Last November I blogged...

I have written a few times in this space (see “Right from the Start” and “The System is Us”) about our work with the Graustein Memorial Fund and stakeholders from around Connecticut to re-conceptualize and change...

“We want a system that provides all children regardless of race or economic background with the same opportunities.” – CT Right From the Start The video above and words below appear on the CT Right from...